Tantalus

This fool was a son of Zeus so honored by the gods that he was allowed to eat at their table and consume the food and drink of the gods. The gods came to a banquet held at his palace and for some mad reason, some say because he hated the gods and some say because he wanted to prove they were not all knowing, he boiled and quartered his son Pelops for dinner. The gods recognized the ploy straight away and declared the criminal be punished in the worst way they could think of, so that no other shall dare enact the same gruesome plan. Tantalus was set in a pool in Hades and given an unquenchable thirst, every time his constantly parched throat made him bend down for water, the water receded. When he stood back up, they water flowed back and surrounded him. It wasn’t just thirst but hunger too and every time he tried to reach the low hanging fruit over his head, the branches would recede out of reach. When he put his arms back down, the branches would fall back over him, tantalizingly close. He was doomed to this fate forever and is probably still down in Hades today being tantalized by his food and drink but unable to quench either thirst or hunger.

Image by Gioacchino Assereto – http://www.museum-joanneum.at/upload/file/Tantalus_kl_1_.jpgPaintings from the Italian Baroque period, 16.03.2007, Press Information, Alte Galerie at Landesmuseum Joanneum, Schloss Eggenberg, Eggenberger Allee 90, A-8020 Graz, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8496722